AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLEROPTIONED FOR TELEVISION BY BRUNA PAPANDREA, THE PRODUCER OF HBO’S BIG LITTLE LIES“A tour de force of original thought, imagination and promise … Kline takes full advantage of fiction — its freedom to create compelling characters who fully illuminate monumental events to make history accessible and forever etched in our minds.” — Houston ChronicleThe author of … history accessible and forever etched in our minds.” — Houston Chronicle
The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Orphan Train returns with an ambitious, emotionally resonant novel about three women whose lives are bound together in nineteenth-century Australia and the hardships they weather together as they fight for redemption and freedom in a new society.
Seduced by her employer’s son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early nineteenth-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to “the land beyond the seas,” Van Diemen’s Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long voyage to this distant land.
During the journey on a repurposed slave ship, the Medea, Evangeline strikes up a friendship with Hazel, a girl little older than her former pupils who was sentenced to seven years transport for stealing a silver spoon. Canny where Evangeline is guileless, Hazel—a skilled midwife and herbalist—is soon offering home remedies to both prisoners and sailors in return for a variety of favors.
Though Australia has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, the British government in the 1840s considers its fledgling colony uninhabited and unsettled, and views the natives as an unpleasant nuisance. By the time the Medea arrives, many of them have been forcibly relocated, their land seized by white colonists. One of these relocated people is Mathinna, the orphaned daughter of the Chief of the Lowreenne tribe, who has been adopted by the new governor of Van Diemen’s Land.
In this gorgeous novel, Christina Baker Kline brilliantly recreates the beginnings of a new society in a beautiful and challenging land, telling the story of Australia from a fresh perspective, through the experiences of Evangeline, Hazel, and Mathinna. While life in Australia is punishing and often brutally unfair, it is also, for some, an opportunity: for redemption, for a new way of life, for unimagined freedom. Told in exquisite detail and incisive prose, The Exiles is a story of grace born from hardship, the unbreakable bonds of female friendships, and the unfettering of legacy.
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Great book on the history of Australia.
Love her books, very well researched and like the way she builds her characters. This is a good book for book clubs as was her Orphan Train. Can’t wait for her next one.
This book was so good! We meet Evangeline just before her life changes. Along the way we meet Hazel and Mathinna also. All three women are thrown into unbearable situations.
It was a heartbreakingly sad story. It’s hard to believe that women actually endured these troubled times.
This is a well written book and one you don’t want to miss.
Thanks to Goodreads and the publisher for the opportunity to win this book
“A London governess and a Scottish midwife’s neglected daughter are sent to a penal colony in Australia, where an Aboriginal girl is in another sort of captivity.” From the description The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline sounds like it will be another interesting book of historical fiction. We all know a bit of the stories about how criminals were shipped off to penal colonies and how the native people in many countries were “civilized” by uninvited visitors.
If this is what you expect from The Exiles, you are in for a pleasant surprise, because in author Kline’s more than capable hands this book brings this history alive. It’s detailed and colorful and moving and haunting.
Yes, Evangeline and Hazel and Olive and the others did commit a crime. But Christina Baker Kline gives us a peek behind the curtain, into the circumstances of their lives to see why and how this could have happened. How they were duped or ignorant or frightened or just born into circumstances that put them on a path that could led nowhere but to prison in Australia. The treatment they receive every step of this journey is horrific, truly inhumane. They are not people, they are property. And as women apparently they are held to a higher standard and therefore must deserve to receive even harsher punishment.
As for Mathinna, the little Aboriginal girl, her crime seems to be having been born in the wrong place and the wrong time. The Governor’s wife has a collection, a bizarre and thoughtless collection, and is conducting an experiment – take one of those savages and give them every opportunity to be just like her. Nature versus nurture. Can she erase their wild, willful natures if they are given the right opportunities? Along with the right clothes to wear and the right food to eat of course? Mathinna, too, is sadly on a path of no return.
The Exiles is not an easy book to read. The arrogance of the British in feeling it was their right, their duty, or maybe just their sport, to try and change or eliminate an entire people is breathtakingly cruel indeed. Again, we already know this history but when reading about it through the eyes of a small child who doesn’t even have the warmth of human contact is heart-wrenching. Mathinna is such a bright, spirited little thing, once so happy and free.
It’s not easy to read about the treatment and prospects of the women prisoners, either. Whether or not they deserved some punishment becomes almost irrelevant when they are subjected to such cruelty, such caprice at the hands of brutal sailors and jailers and government officials, when their lives are in danger every single second and no one cares, usually not even their fellow prisoners, because it really does boil down to survival of the fittest. And receive punishment that seems so out of proportion to the crime.
But even though The Exiles was not easy to read, it was a book I could not put down and feel fortunate to have read. I became so involved with these characters, knowing at times in advance what would happen but hoping for another outcome, being surprised at some of the unexpected twists and turns, feeling my anxiety level rise at the danger that just didn’t seem to abate and was always just around the corner.
Christina Baker Kline is a talented author, masterful, skilled at building word pictures or people, sights, sounds that will engage and haunt you. The story moves smoothy from place to place and advances in time so that you feel a part of the journey. Thanks to the author and William Morrow Books for providing an advance copy of The Exiles in exchange for my honest opinion. This is a strong, thrilling, moving book I am happy to have read and proud to recommend. All opinions are my own.
Oh my gosh! There is so much I want to say about this read. The history, the characters, the drama…Everything is rolled up into one package.
Evangeline has a new job. She is a governess. But, she is falsely accused of stealing a ring. She ends up in Newgate Prison. Never before has she seen anything like this, let alone…live this. She is set for transport to Australia. She knows she will never see England again.
Mathinna is an orphaned aboriginal. She is taken from everything and everyone she has ever known to be on display for the new governor’s wife. How do these two connect…very creatively by the author.
This story follows two story lines, Evangeline and Mathinna. Both are tragic and captivating. Both happen on opposite sides of the world.
Well! Christina Baker Kline did not disappoint! This story is excellent! I read it in one day. I was mesmerized from start to finish. Do not miss this one folks! So good!
Do NOT miss this one! Grab your copy today!
I learned SO much reading this novel! I had no idea that this is what happened with women prisoners – just ship them off to Australia. A completely foreign, unknown country to them. They are sent there to with be incarcerated and if they were lucky they could get chosen for different work details for the prison or others in the community. This story is told through the voices and eyes of a couple of different females. Three who were prisoners sent on this ship to this other world, and a girl who was born and raised on this island and was then “adopted” by a governors wife, she wanted to prove that this child could be refined.
Evangeline has been sentenced for stealing a ring and attempted murder. A crime she did not commit – the ring was given to her as a gift, and yes she did push the other maid down the stairwell, but it was to murder her. Evangeline gets told she is being put on the ship, and being sent to Australia. She befriends Olive who is also being put on the ship. Olive has helped Evangeline understand the way of prison life. They also then befriend another girl, Hazel.
Unfortunately as these women are known as prisoners, men and others take what they want when they want. These women have a tumultuous journey for months on this ship, and can only hope and pray they make it to land, unlike so many who die and are buried at sea on the voyager over. Evangeline, not only was given the ring as a gift, but is also with child. The others help her to get food and to stay healthy during this voyage as she is very high risk being pregnant.
Mathinna has lost her family, and now she is losing her step-father who she has gotten used to raising her. A white woman wants to adopt her, and refine her into a little girl. Mathinna is not sure what to think, she is afraid for being pulled from everything she has ever known to be made a showcase for this woman. She cannot believe the house, clothing and education she is getting, but it is not the same life. She cannot be herself and is always getting scolded for things she does, that was acceptable in her old life.
Just was what happens with the women getting shipped off, Mathinna then gets sent away as well when the governors wife is done with her. She gets sent to an orphanage, since she has no family left where she came from. Poor Mathinna can now be herself, but she is also forced into another place she does not to be, that is worse than living with the white people.
The lives of all four of these characters all interconnect with each other, as each one learns to live in their new places and in their new roles. The four of them have all at times been a rock, and given strength and courage to the others through the hardships and harrowing adventure they’ve been forced on.
This was SUCH a good novel! I did not want to put it down! It was so interesting to read about these ships, and Australia during this time. How it was just an accepted thing, that prisoners would get dumped off on this island, knowing that many of these people would never be able to get back to where they had originally came from.
Thank you at Library Thing and William Morrow for the arc! I would add this one to your list, for those who love historical fiction, and Christina Baker Kline novels!
A book that captured my attention and kept me riveted right to the end, a read that you need to expect the unexpected.
Living in England in the 1800’s was not an easy time, seems like the littlest offense and you ended up in the Jail, or the famous Newgate prison.
The author has us traveling with these poor woman, on a prison ship to the then country of Australia, which was know as the “Prison Colony”, but the mistreatment and life of these poor people was atrocious.
While in Australia, we are with some of the same women we met on the ship, but we also meet a young aboriginal orphan, and see what happens to her as she is more or less being made into a pet.
This is a story that will linger with you, and I found myself rooting for revenge, but there is so much going on here.
A book you really don’t want to miss, it is that good!
I received this book through Net Galley and the Publisher William Morrow and was not required to give a positive review.
A wonderful book, which explores mainly the lives of three women, Evangeline, Hazel and Mathinna.
It takes place in the 1840’s where, Evangeline a young governess is accused of having stolen and gotten pregnant and so she is sent to Newgate Prison and then on to “the land beyond the seas” Van Diemen’s land, a penal colony in Australia, now Tasmania.
She was sent across on a re purposed slave ship called the Medea, along with many other female prisoners. On the boat she meets Hazel, a young girl who’s mother was a midwife and had taught her about natural healing, and midwifery and they become friends.
Meanwhile in Australia, Mathinna, an Aborigine and who was the orphaned daughter of the chief of the Lowreenne tribe, had been relocated along with the rest of her people by the white colonist.
Mathinna herself, was taken by a British couple to raise, more as an experiment to see what a native was capable of learning.
Each of their lives take many twist and turns as we follow them through these unforgiving times.
The author gave us a historical novel which was both fascinating and sad, but always a story I kept wanting to read.
I would like to thank Harper Collins Publishers for a copy of this book
The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline is an excellent historical fiction novel that takes place mostly early 1840s and focusses on the transport of female “convicts” from England to Tasmania.
I knew about the transport of prisoners to North America and Australia in general, but not about the female population to Tasmania. It was fascinating and heartbreaking to see women that were unjustly imprisoned, falsely accused, and excessive punishments for minor infractions ripped away from their lives, families, and loved ones to be transported on repurposed slave ships to the other side of the world against their will. Many did not even make it. I learned so much from this book on this blight in history.
I was also crushed and appalled to see what the British did to the inhabitants and Aborigines that were displaced and negatively affected from the expansion of the British citizens and expansion of the empire onto these lands. What happened to so many is just unspeakable.
I also truly loved and enjoyed this treasure of a story. I loved the alternating sections that put the reader into the minds and thoughts of different women. This book elicited so many emotions: disbelief, heart break, sadness, happiness, worry, and suspense. I went through so many of these experiences in the course of reading these women’s stories.
Without giving away the plot and surprises for fellow readers, I will just have to say that I loved the storyline, the characters, and especially the ending.
I truly enjoyed all of the main characters( as well as the cast of secondary characters): Evangeline, Ruby, Hazel, Maeve, Dr Dunne, Mathinna, and Olive. I enjoyed their complexities, flaws, and transformations as the story progressed.
This was truly an amazing book that I am sure will end up being my favorite of the year. It has everything: history, real events, excellent story and characters, surprises, and a knowledge gained. What more could a reader ask for?
5/5 stars Beyond Amazing!
Thank you William Morrow/HarperCollins for this excellent ARC and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.